Sky Views: The truth - what really happened in Douma?

By Mark Stone, News Correspondent

Truth. It is at the heart of everything that journalism should be all about.

Right now, it seems to be harder than ever to find the truth and if you think you have, it's then easier than ever for someone else simply to dismiss it: Fake news.

I write this, frustrated, after having spent the past two weeks immersed in a confused contradictory world of claim and counter-claim over the Douma 'chemical' attack in Syria.

Many different 'narratives' now exist for might have happened.

Image:Children suffering the effects of a suspected gas attack in Douma. Pic: UOSSM

The dominant assertion - held by France, America and the UK with broad Western backing - is that there was a chemical attack and that President Assad was behind it.

They cited intelligence, open source information along with the past behaviour of President Assad as a brutal dictator and known user of chemical weapons and they acted decisively: a precision missile strike on Syrian government targets.

But we shouldn't accept their narrative at face value. The flawed Iraq 2003 WMD intelligence taught us that and fundamentally damaged trust.

Rule number one - be sceptical. Of everything.

And so, nor, for one moment, should we accept the counter-narratives at face value either.

There are two, variously given traction by the Russian and Syrian governments and their backers.

2:16

Video:Delayed weapons inspectors reach Douma

First that there was no chemical attack and that it was all staged. And second, that if (inserted as appropriate) there was a chemical attack, it was carried out by the Islamist militants fighting the Syrian government for control of Douma.

Creating confusion and casting doubt is playbook Russian tactics.

Truth is under attack. Sovereign governments are engaged in information wars, providing utterly conflicting narratives for events and obstructing efforts to get to the truth.

With Syria it's harder than ever. Obstruction and danger prevents journalists from working as we ought to: from the ground up.

Too often now we are presented with a 'fact' and are required to disprove it without being able to get to the story's ground zero.

Online, echo chambers allow 'alternative truths' not just to fester but to gain traction, fuelled by a worrying and regrettable distrust in the so-called mainstream media (MSM).

Truth is under attack. Sovereign governments are engaged in information wars, providing utterly conflicting narratives for events and obstructing efforts to get to the truth.
With Syria it’s harder than ever. Obstruction and danger prevents journalists from working as we ought to: from the ground up.Mark Stone

Take, for example, a tweet by a man on twitter with the handle @Thomas_Binder. He claims to be a cardiologist and his account says he is from Baden, Switzerland.

It showed some injured children, unconscious and with medical electrodes attached to them.

"As a cardiologist I can say that these ECG electrodes are completely wrong positioned. They would not get any signal. This picture is faked."

The post has, at the time of writing, been amplified through retweets 12,500 times. He later corrected himself, saying he hasn't seen the full video and that he was wrong about the positioning of the electrodes. That tweet was amplified a fraction of the amount.

Crucially, the online babble is increasingly now being amplified outside cyberspace on channels like Kremlin-funded RT (formally Russia Today).

There is nothing new about conspiracy theories, but now they seem to have been supercharged both by social media but also by governments with a competing world-order.

Some are calling for RT to lose its British broadcasting license. That's not the answer. It would fuel the distrust even more. RT's operation and output is slick, convincing and by no means all inaccurate propaganda. Its presence must prompt the MSM to invest in truly impartial and honest journalism. We need to regain that trust from our audience.

Image:A bandaged Syrian child cries as he sits in a clinic in Douma

We must navigate through the chaff and determine the truth; not ignore the alternative truths but examine their assertions, apply scepticism, knock them down or stand them up.

Dis-information campaigns are designed for a low-information audience. Our job must be to give the audience as much information as possible. We need to inform them as best we can about events.

At the heart of the Douma story are a series of videos. You’ll have seen the video of frightened and confused children being hosed down after the alleged attack. It has been played on a loop on most news channels.

But you probably haven't seen the videos of the dead because, in the UK at least, TV channels chose not to show them on taste grounds.

They are horrific: adults and children lying in a room; foaming at the mouth and nostrils; pupils dilated.

If a particular incident is not disputed, then you could argue there's no compelling justification for broadcasting horrific footage of it.

But if, as in the Douma case, there is a central claim that the incident didn’t happen or was somehow faked, especially when the consequence involves global conflict and tremors in the world order, then we must do more than just assume people might seek out the videos online.

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Video:OPCW chemical weapons investigators enter Douma

The videos on their own don't categorically prove there was a chemical attack - we can't be sure, beyond all doubt, about who filmed them, plus, foaming mouths and nostrils can be the consequence of asphyxiation - I have been unfortunate enough to see it up close on drowning migrants in the Mediterranean.

But the videos help inform us about what is happening, and analysis of them paints a fuller picture.

With some remarkable but simple use of technology, an organisation called Bellingcat run by freelance investigative journalist Eliot Higgins, has pieced together the videos. He has geolocated them to an area of Douma and has cross referenced elements from each video to determine that they are all of the same location.

Have a read of his team’s work. It contains links too to other 'open source' information which the western alliance used as part of its justification for their airstrikes against President Assad.

Similar analysis was done on the Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack a year ago which went through precisely the same process of claim and counter claim.

As I write this, I’m watching the Russian Ambassador to the UK using his new-found platform from the Salisbury incident (where claim and counter-claim run just as deep) to present new information about Douma on live television.

Image:The Syrian regime has been accused of carrying out several chemical attacks in Douma

For a week after the Douma attack no journalists (whether they be from the MSM or elsewhere) got near the place. Remember to get to that part of Syria you need to be issued a visa by the Assad government. They don’t hand them out freely and organisations are often ‘blacklisted’ for reporting deemed to be wrong.

The Russian Ambassador is presenting his audience with a clip from a report on Russian TV.

A Russian reporter, Evgeny Poddubnyy, who has clearance from the Syrians and Russians to be on the ground in Douma, has tracked down one of the children filmed being hosed down in the post-'chemical' attack videos.

He looks petrified. Is he being coerced into telling this story? A pawn in this global information war? Or is he telling the truth and just looks frightened because he lives in the middle of a horrific war. I have no idea.

The narrative appears similar to that given to the Independent's long-standing and award-winning Middle East Correspondent Robert Fisk who made it to Douma with help from the Syrian government and spoke to a man who was not a direct eyewitness to the Douma attack.

Another journalist, Pearson Sharp from the OANN (a relatively new American cable news network set up four years ago to target a conservative audience) told a similar story. His twitter feed is full of first-hand accounts from Douma.

Image:Children at a camp for displaced Syrians from Douma

But those narratives don't explain the dead in the graphic videos. If there had been a dust storm, asphyxiating people, why are they not covered in dust? Seeing the videos adds an important element of knowledge.

Fisk and Sharp were not alone on the Assad-government led trip to Douma (which was allowed before the UN chemical weapons inspectors had reached the site).

Accompanying them were news outlets like CBS News and the Associated Press who reported something quite different. They spoke to people who said they had witnessed and been caught up in a chemical attack.

Which is true? Who has been deceived? It's troubling and frustrating.

The chemical weapons inspectors from the Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) will deliver their verdict on what they think happened in Douma in the weeks ahead.

But two weeks since the alleged attack they have only just been given access to the site. Their investigation has already been compromised in terms of security and the real potential for evidence to be tampered with.

That'll allow for the dismissal of whatever conclusions the OPCW makes.

:: The videos referred to above are graphic and disturbing. They require confirmation of age to see them and they are not Sky News videos. To watch them, click on the following links: